
“Are you even listening to me right now?”

Sam picked absently at a chip in the Formica table and gazed out the window behind Meredith. The vinyl booth was sticky against her legs. Everything in that diner had the same feel — damp, grubby, overly bright — but they always went back because Meredith liked the French fries.

“You were saying we never spend enough time talking about our feelings,” Sam said.      

Meredith raised an eyebrow. “Well yeah, you can be so closed off, and sometimes I feel like you’re not even in the room with me …”

Sam’s attention wandered back to the window. She watched as, on the other side of the street, a man retrieved a hammer from beneath his jacket and swung it against the front door of a jewelry store, batting aside a “closed” sign. The glass cracked with the first swing and shattered with the second.      

“Meredith,” Sam started. 

“Sam, please, I’m speaking. See, this is exactly what I was talking about …”

“But –”

The man ducked through the gap in the glass and took his hammer to the nearest display case.

“No, Sam, for once I need you to just pay attention. Otherwise, we’re going to keep going around in circles, and I’m trying to tell you …” 

Alarm bells blared in Sam’s head, not just because of Meredith. Over the murmuring din of the diner, she could just barely make out the sirens of the jewelry store’s security system. The man started taking fistfuls of rings, bracelets, and diamond-studded necklaces, stuffing them into his pockets.

No one stopped him.

Sam’s eyes flitted back to Meredith’s for help, but all she found was accusation. She motioned toward the window. “Can you just –”           
                    
“Fine, I’ll get to the point,” Meredith snapped.

Across the street the man busted open the cash register and pocketed the meager assortment of bills he found there. 

“I’ve thought long and hard about this …”

Sam dragged her gaze back to Meredith even as she heard the peal of approaching sirens. The sound grew loud enough to interrupt Meredith for a moment, but then began to fade quickly.      

“I’ve had several conversations with my therapist, and we both agree that this relationship has gotten really unhealthy lately.”

A suffocating tightness started wrapping its tendrils around Sam’s chest.

It hadn’t always been this way. This diner used to be one of the only places they could afford to eat at regularly, back when they were a couple of broke college students. Sam remembered sitting in that same booth and leaning across the table to kiss Meredith, licking the salt off her lips.

Sam opened her mouth to speak; the words didn’t come. Instead, she glanced back outside to see a retreating police car and an empty jewelry store. Heart pounding, Sam craned her neck until she spotted the man, still on the street.

He jogged a few steps down the sidewalk before stopping abruptly beside a dinged and dented silver sedan.     

The man raised his hammer. Sam rose from her seat.

“Sam!” Meredith exclaimed, “Are you seriously ignoring me right now?” 

The hammer came down, destroying the driver’s side window. This time there was no alarm.

“Meredith.”

“I can’t believe you. If you can’t even pay attention right now, I think we need to be adults about this and admit that it might finally be time to …”

Sam held Meredith’s gaze as outside the engine roared to life. A squeal of rubber was followed by a deafening silence. 

“Break up,” Sam finished for her. She gave a sad smile, then looked past Meredith to the empty spot on the street where the sedan used to be. “Maybe you’re right. It’s amazing what you miss when you’re not paying attention.” She scooped her keys from the table. “But you should at least let me give you a ride home. I think someone just stole your car.”


Understated

In One Ear